"Ken Prager" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]..
>
> Actually, the UN has had successes. East Timor is a recent one. For
> more on this, there was a lengthy article in last Sunday's NT Times
> Magazine on this very subject. The article (titled "Making Sense of the
> Mission") discusses how difficult these tasks are. The URL is...
>

This brings to mind a friend (in Australia) who told me that after Australia
sent troops to East Timor to quell the troubles there that Australia
presented all of its taxpayers whose income exceeded a threshold (IIRC it
was 50000 dollars Aus.) a bill to pay for the military action.

Clay